The NCAA is really trying to ruin college basketball. Think about what they have done in the past year. Tried to expand the best tournament in sports (from 65 to 96!), received terrible feedback, decided to add four teams anyway, and ruined the perfect setup bracket? Check. Appoint not ONE person with a basketball background to their NCAA selection committee, ensuring that they would make some of the most bone-head decisions in tournament selection history? Check. Step in and take action against Jim Calhoun for his recruiting violations regarding Nate Miles when the Big East gave him a weak 3 game suspension next year. Che…..nevermind.

Well you can add a new one to the list. The NCAA board of directors has proposed a rule for 2012 that will force underclassmen to declare their intentions regarding the NBA draft by April 10, about a full month earlier than this year’s May 8th deadline, which is one day before the spring recruiting signing period.

This is just a moronic decision by the NCAA that will only hurt the players. Fringe players, who are unsure of whether or not to go, will not have an opportunity to work out in front of scouts and to hear if they are a first round pick (which are the only picks who get guaranteed contracts).

Reggie Jackson, Shelvin Mack, Ashton Gibbs, Harrison Barnes, Scotty Hopson, Jordan Williams, Terrence Jones, Brandon Knight, Alec Burks, Reggie Johnson, Tobias Harris, Isiah Thomas, Perry Jones, Kawhi Leonard…these are all players who are undecided on their intentions of entering the draft or returning to school next year. All of them would have had to make their decision 4 days ago if this rule were to go into effect for next year.

We aren’t talking about some ho-hum decision that won’t have any consequences. These are the players’ LIVES. Decisions that will determine their careers. Get some bad advice on this one and you could leave school without a degree, not get drafted, and then fail to catch onto a NBA team. What’s next? Playing overseas? Maybe. But should a 18-21 year-old be forced to decided if he wants to risk losing his college education for a chance to play for the Soproni Sördögök (real team, I looked it up) in less than a month? A week?

Mack would have had less than a week after the Title game to make a decision.

The National Championship was played on April 4th.A guy like Kemba Walker can make the decision relatively easy because he is a top-level player who is a lock to be picked in the lottery. No pressure on his decision. Shelvin Mack? Not the same case. He would have SIX days to make his choice. He would need to make a life-changing decision less than a week after he lost an emotionally-charged game and might not have a level head. How about giving him some time so that he can calm down, test the waters, see what his draft status is and then make an informed, educated selection? I mean, all were talking about is the guy’s life.

If that’s their motto- why not let these players see whether or not they can go pro in the NBA by leaving the deadline alone, let them come back to school if they can’t make it, earn their degree and then have the opportunity to “go pro” at something other than sports? Seems to make sense to me. I guess that’s why the NCAA is doing the opposite.

3 responses to “Another clueless move from the NCAA”

The one thing I can think of is that maybe the NCAA thinks that moving the declaration decision up maybe will get more kids to stay in school because they are unsure of their draft status? Otherwise I really can’t figure out why they’d do this. Either way, it’s shady by the NCAA, but I guess that’s pretty much business-as-usual for them.

The reality is that guys like Mack won’t be able to make their decision in less than a week…so they’ll be making it DURING the NCAA Tournament. I can’t think of a better way to taint the quality of play in the tourney.